The PCAM (Practical Course for Atmel Microcontrollers) is designed for beginners. It includes development hardware with on-board interfaces and an in-system programmer, which can be used to follow the text and video tutorials listed below for learning the technology.

It supports Atmel's 89S52 controller (8051 architecture) and ATmega8 + ATmega32 (AVR architecture). These controllers can be interfaced with the following on-board circuits:

LEDs

Seven-segment displays

2-line by 16-character LCD

Stepper motor driver (motor not included)

8-bit ADC (analog-to-digital converter)

RS232

Temperature sensor

IR (Infrared) transmitter

IR (Infrared) receiver

RC5 IR receiver

Serial EEPROM

Switches

4x4 matrix keypad

DC motor driver

I2C-based real-time clock

I2C-based EEPROM

You can add additional interface circuits externally.

Note: This kit ships with a 40-pin AT89S52 microcontroller included; it does not include any AVR microcontrollers. If you want to use this kit to learn AVR programming, you can order an optional ATmega16 microcontroller from the add-on option section at the bottom of this page. The board can also be used with a P89V51RD2 microcontroller.

The links below contain development software and audio-visual tutorials that explain the concepts of developing software in Embedded C for AVR microcontrollers, and Assembly code development for 8051 microcontrollers. Sample source code in assembly language for 8051 (89S52) and C language samples for AVRs also are provided in the tutorials.

AVR & 8051 Kit Online Tutorials

This kit does not ship with any software for documentation. Please download the required software and drivers above, and follow the three tutorials below. First is a basic 8051 microcontroller overview and starter applications in a series of PDF files; second is an online 8051 tutorial with more detailed tasks performed on the PCAM+ hardware; third is a series of video tutorials covering AVR microcontrollers.

AVR Tutorial Videos

This training course is a series of online videos. Follow the links below to view each chapter. Remember that the PCAM+ does not come with an AVR microcontroller; you will have to install one. The tutorials refer to the ATmega32 specifically. Some of the interfaces covered are not on the PCAM+ hardware; they are present on the AVR-LiP board which is part of the EC-AVR-USB training kit. That kit is recommended if you are interested specifically in learning the AVR architecture.